Where the Heck is Canaan?
by fearlessgoddess2
Summary: Weechesters, mostly Deancentric. Dean is 16, Sam is 12. They go to the same school. Outsider’s POV. One-shot.


**Summary: Weechesters, mostly Deancentric. Dean is 16, Sam is 12. They go to the same school. Outsider's POV. One-shot.**

**Rated: K+**

**I love outsider POVs because it's always so much fun to look at the boys from the eyes of someone who has little, if any, knowledge of what is going on. The chapters were kind of randomly written, so I decided to just post it all in one blurb. Hope you guys like!**

**Where the Heck is Canaan?**

The fact that he was extremely good-looking didn't escape me.

I'm a fifteen-year-old girl. I think of myself as decently attractive. However, I prefer to stay in rather than go out. Mostly that has to do with the fact that my father is dead and my mother works 24/7 to make sure we have dinner on the table, so I have to help out a lot. And I have a twelve-year-old brother, Nathan, who I have to take care of. But that's beside the point.

Sort of.

Let me start at the beginning. The first day I saw him. He started at my school about two months into the year. Add that to the fact that it was a small town and everyone already knew each other, he stood out like a sore thumb. And add to _that_ the fact that he was cute, and everyone knew that he was a new kid.

His name was Dean. And wow, was he cocky. He had no problem making friends. He was hanging out with guys at the school like he'd known them for years. This led me to believe that he moved around a lot, so he knew how to acclimate himself.

I wasn't sure why he'd chosen to move to our town, of all places. Honestly I don't know why anyone would. For one thing, Canaan, Connecticut isn't the most well known of places. The firefighter t-shirts actually read, "Where the Heck is Canaan?" which I thought was pretty funny the first time I heard it. There had in fact been three recent missing persons cases in the area, teenage kids. Since all of them went to my school, local parents were freaking out and we'd actually had FBI asking questions, but that didn't occur to me as the reason Dean and his family would move there. Why would it? If anything, it would deter someone from doing so.

I was walking outside toward my bus when I saw Nathan bugging another kid. Now I'll stand by my brother's side against anyone, no questions asked. I will fight to the death if anyone hurts him. But he's no angel. So when I saw what was obviously bullying going on, I walked toward him.

Then I saw _him_. Dean. He was walking outside as well, looking around like he was searching for someone, and his eyes landed on the fight going on. His face went slack and he sped up his pace, walking over, and pushed the kid that Nathan was bugging behind him, defending him. Shoulders stiff, eyes narrowed, he towered over Nathan.

I reached them a second later. "Nate, get on the bus," I told him.

Nathan looked to me and his eyes narrowed. "But I wasn't—."

"When exactly was the last time you lied to me and got away with it?" Nathan stared at me for a few more seconds before he sighed in annoyance and turned, walking away to his bus. I turned to Dean. "That's my brother. He has ego issues," I muttered.

Dean blinked at me. "Ah, you might want to take care of that. Cause this is mine," he said, moving aside to reveal the other kid.

I blinked at the kid, who stared up at me with curious brown eyes, before turning back to Dean. "Oh. Well in that case, I'm _really_ sorry. Nate probably thought he could pick on your brother cause he's a new kid."

Dean nodded slowly. "That's usually how it works. Look, I gotta get going. But, ah, maybe we could hang out sometime?" he asked, flashing a grin. "I'm Dean."

I raised an eyebrow. "Tammie. I'd like to hang out, but I've been busy lately. I've got to go catch the bus. I'll see you around."

At that, I turned away and walked back to my bus. Definitely cocky. There wasn't anything worse than a guy that knew he was attractive. And I would have held that against him.

If I hadn't seen him walk by my bus with his arm protectively over his little brother's shoulders.

00000

Over the course of the next week, Dean sent glances my way. It seemed to me that he was annoyed by the fact that I didn't find him attractive enough to blush and look away when he smiled at me like the other girls at my school did. Instead I smiled back. And kept walking.

We did talk once more, a few days later. He was in the library when I was, heading back to the computers when he noticed me. He sat beside me, looking over my shoulder and cringing. "Advanced math class, huh?" he asked.

I looked up to him and grinned dryly. "Does that scare you?"

"Oh I don't scare easy," he replied.

"Then why aren't you in my class?" I asked.

"Because I'm not that smart," he told me.

I rolled my eyes and looked back to my work. After another few seconds, he left.

The next Monday, he came in with a black eye.

Everyone noticed it, of course. Including me. But we didn't say anything. Sure, kids were staring, but aside from that nobody paid attention. But that day, on my way to the field after changing for track practice, when I was walking past the nurse's office and saw him standing in there staring blank-faced at the nurse, I stopped, standing next to the door so I could listen.

"Look, I told you I fell, what else do you want?" Dean asked. I could tell that he was annoyed with the conversation, but it was more than that. He was scared. Not _scared _scared, and not obviously, but nervous, like he was on the brink of someone finding out a secret.

"Dean, unless you tell us what really happened, I'm going to have to report this."

I swallowed. I knew what that meant.

"Report it to who?" Dean asked. It was an empty question though. I could tell he knew what she meant also.

"Child Protective Services."

My mind spun. That didn't track. Dean's parents couldn't be abusing him, because of Sam. I'd seen Dean with that younger brother of his. Even if it was just abuse against Dean, he would have told someone because he wouldn't have risked his younger brother's safety. As much as he put on the clueless act, he wasn't stupid.

I turned the corner and walked into the nurse's office, over to the two of them, putting my worried face on. "Dean, I didn't want you lying about this to the point of you getting in trouble," I said, my voice hushed slightly, but plenty loud enough for the nurse to hear.

The nurse narrowed her eyes at me as Dean blinked, surprised. "What are you talking about?" the nurse asked.

I sighed, turning to her. "Dean's covering for me. I had this boyfriend that I wanted to break up with. Yesterday, when he came to pick me up from school after track practice, I told him that I wanted to break it off, for him to leave, that I was waiting for the late bus. He wouldn't leave me alone, and Dean saw. He stood up for me, but…Kyle took a swing."

"Kyle?" the nurse asked. "Does he go here?"

I shook my head. "No. I didn't want Kyle to get in trouble because usually he's not like that. He apologized over and over and swore to leave me alone. I haven't gotten a phone call from him since, but Dean made me promise that if he bugged me ever again that I would tell someone."

The nurse looked to Dean, who had by now composed himself, going along with my story. "All right," she murmured. She turned back to me. "But you need to tell someone if this Kyle guy keeps bothering you."

I nodded. "I know. Thanks." I turned to Dean. "Come on, let's go."

Dean smiled at me tightly and picked up his backpack, following me out of the room. We walked down the hall, out of earshot of the nurse, before he spoke. "Why'd you do that?" he asked quietly.

"Because you aren't being abused," I replied.

He glanced over to me. "How'd you know that?"

"Because of your brother." He blinked at me, confused. "If you were being abused, you would have said something. You wouldn't leave him in danger." I looked away. "I have a brother too, remember? I know how it is."

Dean grunted in acknowledgement as he opened the door for me and we walked outside. "Yea, but why'd you lie for me?"

I sighed. "Because I know what it's like to have your parent falsely accused of child abuse. And it's a major pain in the ass."

Dean kept walking by my side silently. "Alright. Well, if you ever need anything, I owe you one."

"One thing," I said, sitting down at a picnic bench. He turned and realized that I was inviting him to sit down next to him, which he did. "How'd you get that black eye? The truth."

Dean stared at me, in shock for a few seconds, before a grin spread across his face. "I'm not telling you."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "Yea. You are."

The grin faltered. "No, I'm not. Listen I appreciate you vouching for me, it saved me some trouble, but I'm not telling you anything."

"Why?"

Dean sighed. "Well primarily because you won't believe me."

"Try me."

Dean shifted in his seat on the bench so he was facing me more. "Look, Tammie, you're a nice enough girl, but I'm not going to spill all my secrets to you just because—."

"I'm not asking you to spill _all_ your secrets to me," I interrupted. "I'm just asking you to tell me one thing. Where you got a black eye." Dean ran his hands through his hair, as if exasperated. "You want to tell me, don't you?"

Dean looked over to me. "What?"

"You want to tell me. I can tell. You're scared to."

Dean narrowed his eyes. "I'm not _scared_."

"Then tell me."

"No."

"_Please_."

For some reason, Dean hesitated. He sighed, leaning forward on his knees for a few seconds, then sat back up. "You really want to know?"

"Yea."

"Fine. I got it from a ten year old girl."

I blinked at him. "You what?"

"I got it from a ten year old girl. My dad and I were performing an exorcism and it got rough. She caught me right here," he said, tapping his wound.

I swallowed. "An exorcism?" I whispered.

He nodded. "Told you that you wouldn't believe me."

At that, he got up and started to walk away. "And what makes you think that I don't?" I managed to ask.

Dean turned around and hesitated before he walked back, standing in front of me, his arms crossed in disbelief. "You believe me."

"Dean, you just told me that a ten year old _girl_ gave you that black eye. You are one of the cockiest guys I have ever met. If you were going to lie about this, you would come up with something better than that."

Dean stared at me. "So what happened?"

I blinked at him. "What?"

"Something happened. Something that made you believe in this stuff. Monsters in the dark, all that," he said, motioning vaguely with his hand. "Anyone else I said that to would have rolled their eyes and gotten pissed at the obnoxious comment. So what happened?"

I stared at him for a few seconds. "I haven't…even spoken about this aloud for at least five years. I like to think I put it behind me, even that I made it up, and I hope that when I get older I'll attribute it to being an imaginative child." Dean nodded slowly before coming and sitting back down next to me. "It was…my brother," I said quietly. "He was possessed when he was five. Almost didn't make it through the exorcism. He doesn't remember any of it."

"Who did the exorcism?"

"I don't know," I murmured. "My mom found someone I guess. I was eight; I didn't know what was going on." I sighed softly. "But I remember listening from down the hall. I remember the Latin. The screaming. And then everything was quiet. And we never talked about it again." Dean nodded again. "So you and your dad…you do this stuff often?"

"Yea. Kind of his job."

"Exorcisms are his job?"

Dean snorted. "Not just exorcisms."

"What else?" I asked.

Dean shrugged. "Well, like hauntings or…." He stopped, an odd look coming over his face. "Just…other stuff. You don't need to know."

"You're protecting me?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"My job," he replied with another shrug.

I let the all-too-obvious line about him being only fifteen slide. "That why you move around a lot?" I asked. He looked over to me, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. "You fit in really well here. Too well. Almost like you've done it many times before."

Dean leaned back against the table. "Yea, a few times." He sighed. "And yea, that's why we move around."

"Does your brother know?"

"Yup. He found out about two years ago."

"So is that why you came here?" I asked. "To, 'Where the Heck is Canaan?'"

Dean smirked. "Basically."

I paused and my eyes narrowed a bit. "The kids going missing here…."

Dean glanced to me out of the corner of his eye. "Yea, something's going on. We're working on it."

I heard the clear ending of that part of the conversation in his voice and folded my hands in my lap. "You know…you're the only person I ever told. About what happened to Nate."

"I don't see why. It's a great conversation starter," he replied.

I snorted. "Ya."

Dean stood up. "Listen, I gotta go. I'll see you around."

I nodded. "Yea. See ya."

"And what I said before? I meant it. If you ever need anything, just ask," he said.

I smiled. "I will. Thanks. Same goes for you, you know."

Dean paused for a moment, examining my expression, before he turned and walked away.

00000

Dean and I barely talked over the next couple weeks. We'd smile at each other in the hallway, wave if we saw each other outside school, which we did because it was a small town. Aside from that, it was back to normal. His black eye started fading too.

It was 9:52 PM on a Wednesday and I was in my pajamas and in bed when I got a rap at my window.

It took me a couple of seconds to figure out what it was. When I finally did, I got out of bed and pulled up the Venetian blinds, my eyes widening when I saw who was outside. I opened the window and the screen. "Jesus, Dean, what the hell are you _doing_ here?" I hissed. "It's ten at—." I stopped as I caught sight of Sam peeking out from behind him. I looked back to Dean and realized he had a backpack and duffle with him. "What's wrong?"

"Usually when I tap on a girl's window in the middle of the night I don't have my brother with me, but…."

I stared at him. "What?"

Dean swallowed, looking amazingly uncomfortable. "Look, I'm sorry, but we got nowhere else to go."

I sighed in exasperation. "Fine. Get inside," I murmured, moving aside. Dean helped Sam up over the windowsill and came in himself before closing the window. I walked over to my bedroom door, closing and locking it, and walked back over to Dean as he and his brother put their things on the floor. "My mom and my brother are both asleep. What's going on?" I whispered.

"I can't really explain right now," he said quietly, his eyes flickering to Sam, who seemed to be enamored with the details of my room. Who knows, maybe he'd never been in a girl's room before? There was no doubt that he was tired though, it almost being ten-o'clock. He looked almost as if he'd been woken from sleep and brought over here.

I nodded and sighed. "Okay," I muttered. I thought for a few seconds before I walked over to my closet, taking out an extra quilt and sheets, setting them up on my floor with some extra pillows. "It's not the Hilton, but—."

"It's great. Thanks," Dean told me. He turned to Sam, who was staring at my bookshelf. "Sammy, time for bed."

Sam nodded silently, taking off his shoes and socks and putting them aside before he crawled under the sheet, putting his head on the pillow. I motioned to Dean and we walked out my bedroom door, shutting off the light before I closed it behind us. We went down the hallway, and into the garage, closing the door behind ourselves. I turned to him. "What happened?" I asked.

"I got a call from my dad," he said quietly. "He said get out. So we did. You were close. Thought I'd give it a shot. I'm really sorry that I just—."

"Dean, no," I told him. "It's okay. You needed help. I'm glad you came to me because I can give it to you." Dean pursed his lips tightly, nodding, and I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck. "Okay. My mom leaves for work before I even get up, so she won't bug us. And my brother barely comes in my room at all. You can crash here for the night and I'll bring you some breakfast tomorrow morning. You can leave through the window and I'll call in a favor to get us a ride to school. My brother will get on the bus and won't even see you. Tomorrow afternoon we can get you set up at a motel."

Dean stared at me for a few seconds before nodding slowly. "Yea. Um…thanks."

"It's no problem," I replied. "You said before that Sam know everything? Like…what you and your dad do?"

Dean sighed. "Yea, Sammy knows about all this shit. For a couple years now. He's been learning enough himself to follow in our footsteps one day."

I nodded slowly. "Okay. Well, did your dad leave you enough money to last until he gets back?"

"Oh yea, I'm set," he told me, waving off the subject.

"Even with the impromptu motel room fees?"

"Tammie, it's fine," Dean said with a smile.

"I just don't want you living on the street," I said. "If you need more help, you can ask."

Dean swallowed and nodded. "Thanks," he murmured. He looked almost awkward, as if he wasn't used to this much help from people. "You…You're amazing. Thanks for…all this."

I nodded, smiling back slightly. "You're welcome."

"Ah…where's the best place for me?" Dean asked.

"My room's fine," I replied. "I'll grab another quilt. Come on."

00000

I awoke at about three a.m. when Dean left the room. I have to say he was remarkably quiet, but I was used to silence and no movement in my room as I slept. When I heard a light buzzing, looking sleepily through my eyelids at the dull green light on Dean's 'bed', I realized it was a cell phone. I remained silent, briefly considering just going back to sleep as Dean left and noiselessly closed the door behind himself. I glanced over to Sam, who hadn't woken, and pursed my lips thoughtfully before I quietly got up out of bed and left my room, following him. So sue me, I'm nosy.

Walking down the hall, I heard the small sound of the garage door closing. I went over to the bathroom that shared a wall with the garage, standing on the toilet and opening the vent that we normally kept closed to keep cold air from seeping into the house.

"…No sir. We weren't followed, I'm sure of it…. No, there wasn't anyplace nearby. We're staying with a friend of mine." Dean paused. "Look, it's safe, off the radar, and she won't ask questions." He sighed softly. "No, it's not like that with her. She's—. Dad, we're good, okay? Do I need to put any wards up or put a salt line down…? Well then what was it?" He paused again. "Ah…no. Neither of us. Not so much as a paper cut…. Yes sir. You know when you'll be back…? Yea, Tammie has a friend who can drive us in to school and to a motel after. Tammie says she can be counted on to keep it quiet. Owes her one or something. We'll hunker down there 'til you get back. I'm set to keep out anything that tries to get in on the impossible possibility that it tracks us down. I've got supplies in my duffle."

Dean paused once more. "Yes sir." There was a quiet _beep _and I blinked as I realized he'd abruptly ended the call, having expected more of an opportunity to get back to my room. I got down off the toilet and paused at the bathroom door, planning on waiting until he got back to bed and flushing the toilet in the bathroom next to my room to throw him off, a smart plan I thought, but was startled by the soft knock right in front of my face.

There was an expectant pause and I quickly turned and flushed the toilet, running my hands under the water for a few seconds before opening the door with an innocent smile. "Hey. You need to use the bathroom?"

Dean smiled at me, as if he had a secret, and shook his head with a sigh. "Get your ass back to bed young lady. We've got school tomorrow."

00000

"Thanks, Nicky," I said with a tight smile as I got into the front seat of the sedan.

"No problem," she said absently, not so subtly looking Dean over as he got into the back seat with Sam, shutting the door.

"Ni-cky," I said through clenched teeth. She glanced over to me, eyebrows raised in a question. "_Not_ what happened."

"Please, that is _really_ notwhat happened," Dean confirmed, sounding almost insulted. "If I hook up with a girl, I don't need a ride to school the next day and I do _not_ bring my little brother."

"My mistake," Nicky replied with a sly half-smile. I rolled my eyes, shifting my backpack on my lap.

"Although we do need a ride to a nearby motel after school," Dean told her.

Nicky looked to me out of the corner of her eye.

"We will be dropping Sam and Dean off _there _and you will drop me off at _my _house," I said pointedly.

"Whatever," she said with a sigh.

I turned slightly, looking back to Dean with an exasperated glare, and he gave me a wide-eyed, innocent look. At that, I rolled my eyes once again, turning back to look out the windshield. Dean was very lucky he was cute. He was also lucky he had those sexy trust-me eyes that seemed more suited to be staring at you from a literal knight in shining armor. Because if he hadn't, I'm not sure I would have come to him later when things got really weird.

00000

It seems to me that I'm very good at getting in trouble even when I'm minding my own business. I was four years old when I got in trouble for drawing on the wall with crayons, though it had really been the young son of my mother's friend and I had only been drawing on the paper. I had been twelve years old when a student next to me in class had copied off my math test, leaving them remarkably identical, and creating a whole annoying mess that got me an unnecessary lecture on cheating. Then of course there was the time when I was fifteen that I was about to go to sleep and a handsome young classmate of mine knocked on my window.

But more recently was the time that, two days later, I was walking down my school hallway to chemistry and saw a classmate walk through a closed door.

At first I thought I was confused. A shadow had played a trick on my eye or something. It didn't stop me from yelling, "Holy crap!" though, sending at least ten pairs of eyes toward me as I stumbled to a halt. I stared at the door, which was, oddly enough, apparently a sealed-off elevator shaft as the sign on it so prominently announced. Completely bewildered, I slowly started to walk again, the eyes of my classmates leaving me gradually. My head turned as I walked by it, my eyes locked to it, until I tore them away and sped up.

It wasn't until I found Dean a few seconds later that I realized my eyes had sought him out as he passed me predictably on the left as he did every day between sixth and seventh period. "Dean!" I called, grabbing his arm.

Dean seemed to instinctively tense up under my hand as he turned to face me, then relax as he saw it was me, his face slipping into a lazy grin. "Hey cutie," he said. It only took him another split-second to take in my expression and as quickly as the grin appeared it was gone. "What's wrong?"

"I, ah…need to talk to you," I said, motioning to the phone alcove nearby. Dean walked with me over to it, out of the way of passing classmates. "I…just saw something really weird."

Dean's eyes searched mine intently. "What?"

"I don't…I don't really know. It's just…. I was walking down the hall, and one of the students…I forget his name, Jack or John or something, I saw him…."

Dean stared at me. "Yea?"

"Walk through a closed door," I said quietly. "That one in the 400 wing, the empty elevator shaft."

Dean's eyes looked away from mine and he appeared to briefly consider what I'd told him, his eyes narrowed in annoyance for a moment, and then comprehension suddenly dawned on his face. "Oh, son of a _bitch_," he whispered. "I missed it."

"What?" I asked, my eyes widening.

Dean's gaze shot back to mine. "Did anyone else see this? Even glance toward it for a second?"

"Ah…no. They all looked to me when I yelled holy crap though," I told him. "Why?"

"That's it. That's where it is," he mumbled, half to himself, his gaze wandering for a moment. Dean looked back to me. "You need to go to class," he stated, putting a firm hand on my shoulder and pulling me out of the alcove. "And I need to make a phone call."

"What? Why?" I asked, confused.

"Go to class," he repeated firmly, nodding down the hall in the direction I had been going before. "I gotta go." And at that, Dean turned and walked down the hall, dodging students as he went, before ducking into the boy's bathroom.

I raised my arms and flopped them down at my sides in annoyance before sighing and turning to get to my class before the bell rang.

00000

I listened to my English teacher lecture about Hamlet about an hour later, my mind finally having drifted from thoughts of disappearing classmates and Dean and instead focused on the workings of Shakespeare. Dean actually was in my class, so the fact that he hadn't yet officially returned from his 'phone call' bothered me. My mind instantly snapped back to Dean, however, when the fire alarm abruptly started wailing. The teacher at the front of the class started instructing students to leave the room, quickly and quietly.

About half of the students were outside when the ground noticeably shook with an explosion. Shrieks and cries of surprise echoed through the school as eyes darted around in confusion. My eyes wide, I was almost corralled forward with the flow, and we walked the designated distance from the school.

My chest tight, I pursed my lips as my thoughts went to Dean. I tried to convince myself that he could take care of himself, that there was nothing to worry about. When I caught a familiar head of brown hair walking with his class, my eyes widened and I slipped through the crowd of panicked, jabbering students over to him.

"Sam!" I called.

Sam turned toward my voice, blinking in surprise as he saw me. "Tammie," he spoke as I stopped in front of him. "What's wrong?"

"Do you know what's going on?" I asked.

Sam's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"Dean left like an hour ago. I was talking to him…. He took off, said he had to make a phone call. Now this happened," I said, motioning to the chaos around us. "I thought maybe you would know something."

Sam stared at me suspiciously. "Something about what?" he asked.

"I…I saw something," I said, leaning in toward the boy as I lowered my voice. "And I told Dean about it."

Sam glanced to the other students, making sure they were too busy talking to each other to listen in. He took a step forward, looking at me with intensive eyes as he put a hand on my arm. "What did you see?" he asked.

I swallowed. Sam suddenly seemed much older than his twelve years, as he had informed me before that he was. "This student walked right through a closed door in the 400 wing," I hissed. "I was the only one who seemed to notice." Sam's eyes shifted in confusion, looking away from me. He blinked a few times, his eyes darting around, as if trying to connect different thoughts to each other, for about ten seconds. "Do you have any idea what happened? I mean it felt like a bomb went off in there," I told him.

It was only another split-second later that Sam's expression seemed to freeze in place and his eyes darted back to mine. "A bomb," he whispered. I saw him mouth it more than I heard him say it. Understanding appeared in his eyes and he seemed to relax the slightest bit, a small smile surfacing on his face. "He found it," he said, slightly louder. "He got it."

"Got what?" I asked, narrowing my eyes.

Sam pursed his lips, glancing to the school before looking back to me. "Dean's fine," Sam told me. "He'll have gotten out. He wouldn't have done it if he couldn't."

I stared at Sam blankly, his eyes drifting from mine as he spoke the words. "What are you talking about?"

I saw Sam flex his fingers anxiously. "Go back to your class," he said, nodding to his left. "You'll get in trouble."

My mouth opened, as if to say something, and I blinked, surprised. I narrowed my eyes, feeling foolishly annoyed at being told what to do by someone three years my junior, but obeyed nonetheless. I glanced back at Sam as I walked over to my group and his arms were tightly folded across his chest, his gaze firmly staring at the school.

The students continued to jabber and the teachers continued to convene in groups of three or four, still in sight of their classes. It was about a minute or so later that I heard a casual voice from my right.

"You'd think a bomb went off or something," Dean mused, looking around at all the students.

I started, not having noticed that he'd walked up beside me. "Dean!" I exclaimed. "Where—?"

"Tammie, I've been here with you the whole time," he told me gently, the innocent eyes at full force. Then Dean let a shadow of his cocky grin slip out before he smothered it with a standard bored face. "Guess I'm not taking my history exam today," he muttered with a sigh.

I blinked at him, folding my arms. "You have some explaining to do," I told him, leaning in so others wouldn't hear me. "What the Hell happened?"

Dean looked to me and let out a long breath. "Tammie, you ever hear someone say that kids see ghosts more often than adults because they still believe?"

I stared for a few seconds. "Um…I guess, yea."

"What you saw…you saw because you believe. That's why you saw it and nobody else did."

I waited for him to continue, but he didn't. "That doesn't tell me anything."

Dean's gaze slid back to the school. "There's nothing dangerous in that school anymore. That's all you need to know."

Somehow, I latched onto the word _dangerous_, putting a hitch in my breath,and it took me a few seconds to comprehend the rest of the sentence. "You…." My voice trailed off, and in the commotion around us, I don't even think I had spoken loud enough for him to hear the word. "There _was_ something," I said to him.

"Yea," he grunted.

"But now there's not."

"Right."

I felt a convoluted bunch of emotions in my chest and took a deep breath in and out before speaking. "Thank you," I murmured.

Dean's eyes looked back to mine, and I was surprised to see that he looked a bit taken aback, like he hadn't expected that to be what I'd said. Thinking back to it, I'm not really sure what else I could have said in its place. But Dean just gave me a brief nod and looked back to the school. "You're welcome," he muttered.

The hustle and bustle of police arriving at the scene had quickly become dull to the students, since it quickly became apparent that we weren't getting told jack squat. After an hour of waiting outside, during most of which the kids had realized we weren't going anywhere and had sat down on the ground, buses started pulling into the parking lot in the front.

Surprisingly, all students were told to get on the buses straight away, that we weren't being allowed back into the school until it had been deemed safe to reenter. Everyone would retrieve their belongings the next day. Teachers would keep a sharp eye on students coming in, to ensure that nobody stuck their hands into someone else's bags, and once everything was sorted out we would go to homeroom.

Interestingly enough, I didn't see Dean at school the next day. Nor did I see Sam. They didn't come in to school the day after that either. Realizing that I didn't have a home address for him or even a phone number, I was caught off-guard when it occurred to me that I wasn't going to see him again and I had no way of contacting him. Dean had moved on to a new school, to charm other girls and protect his younger brother from other bullies. He'd moved on to battle other monsters, save other people. He'd moved on to set off bombs in other schools' basements.

**THE END**


End file.
